Forum - View topicREVIEW: Le Chevalier D'Eon DVD 1
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LydiaDianne
Posts: 5634 Location: Southern California |
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Yes, you're nitpicking! Just enjoy the series for what it is. Detach that part of your brain, sit back and enjoy the wonderful ride that, I believe, this story is going to take us on. |
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Sam Murai
Posts: 1051 |
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Chevalier d'Eon is a great show, but I wish it had a much better dub, which going by the first episode streamed online, was atrocious. I know it would be asking a bit much from the voice actors to supply French (or at least ambiguous European) accents, but they all sounded too American. In addition, it was poorly miscast, as nearly none of them fit their roles well, and the acting itself was suspect. That's pretty uncharacteristic from a studio that has had a reputation for putting out quality dramatic work, yet they drop the ball on this one. Perhaps the rest will work out better, though the miscasting aspect is its own biggest hurdle.
The Japanese cast, in contrast, seems to work out better, despite the lack of accents (not surprising, considering the difficulties with English alone). At least in this case, the VAs did a better, more believable acting job in the first episode than did the English cast. |
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Deltakiral
Posts: 3338 Location: Glendora, CA (Avatar Hei from Darker than BLACK) |
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I agree, although in a perfect world we could have VA that could have the right accents, I thought that in episode one I didn't feel like it killed the story/mood. Are you thinking that you wished that cast had some more diverse VA like in Master Keaton? |
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Chrno2
Posts: 6172 Location: USA |
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I finally got the chance to sit down and quickly read this review and it's pretty dead on. I'd seen this title posted throughout adds, ANN and 'Newtype USA'. My first impression of it was,
"Is this another show similar to the likes of 'Revolutionary Girl Utena'? Oh how wrong I was! I finally decided to take a stab at it after watching a documentary about "rats" and how they contributed to the 'Black Plague'. How countless victims became part of the historical menagerie of creepy catacombs filled with thousands upon thousands of skulls and bones. And the strange religious cults that also existed around that time. I decided to read up on who he was before starting just to get an idea of who he was. It was a facinating read. I caught a streaming episode and I was amazed at how well thought out the story was and how they handled the whole matter of the original 'D'Eon's transgender issue to come up with such a highly clever and creative piece of work. Because of the way they handled it and what I researched it made watching this show all the more enjoyable. But you don't have to do all that to enjoy it. Hahaha! :lo: Again it just goes to show you how "anime" will make you question the ideas involved with the show. If Tezuka's 'Adolf' can teach you something about 'WWII' then 'Le Chevalier d'Eon' can teach ya something about 'pre-revolutionary France'. Character designs by the same person involved with 'Kurau', no wonder 'Lia Beaumont' looked so angry. Hahaha!! I really want to watch more of this show. I really want to see where the mystery leads. I might even consider adding this to my wishlist. Again this was not a show that I would have considered watching, but every now and then I always give shows a try and see if they pique my curiosity enough to continue. And this one did. |
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Key
Moderator
Posts: 18352 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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You actually thought the Japanese cast was much better chosen on this one? Wow. This is one of the few series where I saw it partly fansubbed (well, okay, only the first two eps) first, and I still disliked the Japanese casting well before I heard the English dub. Louis XV sounded much too deep, Anna sounded much too girly, and in general having 18th century European characters sounding Japanese threw me off a lot more than French characters speaking English. And I'll reiterate what I said in the review: they don't sound right voicing those Psalms in Japanese. Oh, well. To each his own, I guess, but from what I've seen there are far, far worse English dubs out there than this one, as well as much better Japanese dubs. |
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v1cious
Posts: 6216 Location: Houston, TX |
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but Adv did it with Air Gear, and Geneon has no problem with accents (Hellsing). i just don't see how it's impossible, aside from resources Last edited by v1cious on Mon Feb 05, 2007 8:51 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Sam Murai
Posts: 1051 |
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I'll clairify my choice of the cast. I said that the Japanese cast "worked out better than the English one", but that didn't mean that they were necessarily much better chosen. For the most part, much of the cast is slightly unremarkable, as there are far better vocals that could have been extracted with the show. None of the voices stand out terribly well either, but what made it the overall better of the two was that they gave the more convincing performance and had the better vocals. That said, you're right on Louis and Anna, though I'd like to add Robin in as well as one who sounded too generic (too old-sounding in the English version). I had a similar experience in terms of incompatibility with Rose of Versailles (Chevalier minus the supernatural craziness...sort of). A good job by the actors, but so strange hearing the same style of Japanese-speak coming out of the characters' mouths that one could hear in any other show at its time. |
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mistress_reebi
Posts: 735 Location: Canada |
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I cringed when I heard them attempt to speak French. They should work on their French because the location is in France. [EDIT: Please do not excessively quote when making such a short reply. Only quote the relevant part and not 4 or 5 other posts. -TK] |
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Kagemusha
Posts: 2783 Location: Boston |
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I thought the first episode that IGN had was a fairly mediocre historical mystery/horror tale. Animation was nice and l liked the conspiracy elements which gave it a From Hell-vibe (the superb comic, not the poor movie), but pretty bland characters and storytelling for the most part. But the end twist certianly was a pleasent suprise, even if its a pretty standard anime convention at this point. I guess a rental is in order to see if the praise is justified.
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Urd
Posts: 317 Location: Paris, France |
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It's the same problem for Gankutsuou, Sakura Wars... I wouldn't understand what they say without subtitles. I wouldn't even understand they try to speak french. |
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Ashen Phoenix
Posts: 2930 |
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Same here. i've read some very well-written reviews, and for some animes/mangas, the reviewerwould straight-out say if the plot or characters or pacing sucked, or if the dub or sub was severely lacking one way or the other. Critism seemed almost like a requirement for any review, so as to not appear biast. this is what i thought 'til i read this just now. It's really a fantastic-sounding anime, and i can't wait to see it now! Thanks a lot! |
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HellKorn
Posts: 1669 Location: Columbus, OH |
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Doesn't Key have a favorable bias towards historical anime? Bah, whatever. Le Chevalier D'Eon is going to be one of the best releases in the U.S. this year, though honestly I wonder if that is really saying anything...
Regardless, ADV seems to have gone all-out for this release. By any luck the box that'll come with volume two will be one of their better ones.
It's one of my favorite openings in all of anime, for some reason. Visuals, as you mentioned, are a major reason for that.
It's for the better as the facial expressions portrayed in both series are convincing enough. On an aside note, I'm also looking forward to ADV's release of Kurau: Phantom Memory. I watched the series fansubbed over a month ago since I became impatient and wanted to make sure it is a worthy buy, and it turned out to be my favorite Bones series along with Wolf's Rain.
The first episode is rather haphazard and struck me as Production I.G. just having an excuse to use their skill of creating "purdy pictures," but it gradually settles down and becomes much closer to that of what one would expect with a historical piece. If you don't mind the mystical elements in it, then Chevalier is definitely a very strong anime that, from the first thirteen episodes I've seen, gets better as the series goes on. |
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Key
Moderator
Posts: 18352 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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Surprised you remember. Guilty as charged, although even with factoring that out it's still at least an A- grade volume.
Can't say I'm disappointed to hear that. |
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ananda
Posts: 109 |
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Sounds great! And I really like the seeting, the look and feel of "Le Chevalier D'Eon"
Look forward to checking it out. |
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MokonaModoki
Posts: 437 Location: Austin, Texas |
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Sounds like I scored.
I already watched the fansubs through episode 10 or so and was getting tired of the Japanese voices so I decided to stop and wait for the dub. Picked this one up for $20 from the ADV table at Ikkicon this weekend (and still two weeks before its street date)! Now this review compels me to take advantage of my time travel and give this a fresh viewing tonight. PS: I agree with the opinion above. The story definitely continues to improve as it progresses. |
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